Sick on Christmas

Christmas is around the corner, so shouldn't I be filled with joy?

I love making hot cocoa and snuggling up with my family. I love brainstorming about the perfect gift for each family member and I love love love when they come in the mail! Wrapping is fun. Christmas smells are delicious. Mariah Carey Christmas tunes are music to my ears.

These things make me so happy.

But I'm not going to lie and say that I am constantly filled with joy when thinking about the approaching holiday. Actually it's quite the opposite. When I think about the actual days of Christmas festivities I start to feel a bit faint.

Like, sick actually.

I start thinking about missed naps, late bedtimes, tantrums, well-meaning family members who are way to willing to fill little children with loads and loads of SWEETS, traveling and toys that make noise!

This does not describe a joyful holiday for me.

I'm not here to complain though.

Here is a rundown of my first christmas with a child.

Actually, I just tried to access that part of my memory and I think I may have blocked it out.

All I can remember is Christmas day. It was not too bad,  but my little lady was running low on sleep because of Christmas Eve Eve and Christmas Eve with her other family. At seven months old, she sat on the floor while everyone opened their gifts. When it came time for hers, family members naturally wanted to hold her and open her gifts with her. I watched as she fussed and half cried, not wanting to be held. While people kept saying (in the best way possible) "No, you don't want mommy now, here! let's open some gifts!" I remember my brain being absolutely fried. FRIED. It was like, all of the check engine lights were flashing in my brain, all lit up saying "Leave her alone, she's just tired!!"

I wish I could remember the full Christmas to properly describe the days that preceded this one and led me to the breakdown, but I can't. And frankly, I don't think I want to.

I had to bring this to God because I absolutely could not have this happen every single holiday and we still had one more family to visit!

He showed me, what you are probably thinking right now.

I have control issues.

I know this, I know that I know what is best for my children, based on what God has shown me and past experience, but sometimes, even this has to be let go a bit. Hanging on to anything can develop into control. God was showing me that if I try to control everything-- even with the best intentions-- then I am not allowing Him to come close. I am actually keeping myself from experiencing God even more. More importantly, He showed me that this world is not ideal. It is fallen. When I try to ALWAYS  keep my children's environments at the ideal temperature, I am robbing them. I am taking away from them the opportunity to learn how to function in a less than ideal world, and I am actually (this is hard to type) keeping God further away from them as well. I stand in place of Holy Spirit who was sent to us as comforter and guide to learn how to navigate this world no matter what situation we find ourselves in.

Phew.

As are many things with God, this was comforting, refreshing and extremely hard to swallow.

How can I be ok just sitting back? WELL! That's where this past thanksgiving came into play. I tried just sitting back. Letting it allllll slide. The lady had lots of good thanksgiving food accompanied by 2 solo cups filled with orange juice, cherry pie, pumpkin pie and three layer cake. Family members smiled and giggled at her extreme desire for junk food and her oh so adorable tantrum when I tried to say no. When we got home (past her bedtime and with no nap) bed time was out of control. We both just sat and cried. It was terrible.

To God I went. What was going on?!?

He encouraged me to put the two together and see what happens. Combining what I know to be best, but with room for movement so that Holy Spirit could guide both me and my children creates BALANCE. He spoke that He has given me the ability to know what is best for my children, I have to stick to that, but I can't let myself go absolutely crazy when things aren't going exactly as planned. There has to be a balance.

So here is the balance challenge this Christmas. Christmas eve and Christmas day are planned. Last minute we are asked to tack on two more events back to back, making 4 days of family events in a row.

Excuse me while I grab a paper bag and take deep breaths.

I simply said no. Nope. No. We aren't doing both. I have a responsibility to my children and my family to keep the stress levels low--to make Christmas enjoyable.

This is in fact the celebration of our Savior's birth. It can be so easily forgotten.

Lord, help me as I keep trying to find the balance!

Any tips on how to keep Christmas' bipolar qualities at bay?

A house is not a home...

"And Jesus replied to him, 'Foxes have holes and the birds of the air have lodging places, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head."

Before I was married, but after I left home, I moved around a lot. Now that I am married, WE move around. A lot.

 Maybe it's me? 

In the seven years after high school I moved 8 times. In 4 years of marriage we have moved 4 times. I like to think that perhaps God knew what my marriage would look like so he prepped me to be an extra efficient purger and packer in the years leading up to it :)

 Or maybe I just have a home-commitment problem. 

Either way, because of the constant moving it's hard for me to really lay down roots, decorate in ways that I would like and really create a home that I want to live in and grow a family in.

During one particular move, I was extra emotional. We were moving from my absolute dream apartment to a house and a town that was just not... me. I remember unpacking our room while my husband was having some friends over to play cards. I was silently crying, and heard him tell one of our friends that I was not "handling the move very well." 

That's when I lost it. 

Total meltdown, crashed into a pile of boxes and sobbed. 

WHAT is our life? Why can't I settle God? Where are you taking us God?

 In between cries, I started thinking of Jesus. He didn't have a home on earth either. I perked up a bit, honored and humbled that God would let me experience a bit more of His son. I wondered how Jesus did it. 

My conclusion? 

The presence of God. 

He didn't have a home but he was so close to his father. 

Standing in a room of boxes, I knew what would make our house a home. And it wasn't the hardwood floors that I longed for. It was the presence of God. 

And again, I felt honored and humbled that God would choose little ol' me to walk this path.

What makes your house a home?

** Disclaimer: To my darling husband, this does NOT in any way mean that I don't want to move back to the city into a dream apartment. I would do that tomorrow. Or tonight, actually. Yeah. Tonight.

Respect the Journey

As a birth worker the  idea of "respecting the journey" is something that comes up often. Respect of the birthing woman...respect that her body, if left alone, will birth a baby. Respecting that the baby knows how to be born. God has shown me how this plays out in our journey as Christians as well.
He has also shown me that the journey doesn't really matter.


It's hard for me to wrap my head around this.


But if we could always understand God then He wouldn't be much of a God, right?

When I was pregnant with my first child, I would tell God, "I can't have a baby. I'm not where I need to be spiritually!"

I wanted to be at a place on my journey with Jesus where I spent quality time with him everyday- where my faith could literally move mountains. I wanted to see miracles, healing, signs and wonders everyday and hear God clearer than I could hear my husband.

But I wasn't there at all.

Like, not even a little bit.

God told me something like this:
"It doesn't matter that they (my children) aren't seeing the "glory" of your relationship with me. What         matters is that they see your hunger and your thirst. It matters that they see you pressing on towards your goal and striving to know me better. If they just see the end result, it will all feel way out of their reach. They need to see your journey, and you need to respect your journey and not wish it away."

-----

Just the other day, my daughter was eating her lunch. She was taking each and every pea, squishing it and putting it to the side. She said she was making "pea oil." It took everything in me to just walk away and trust she would eat. I tried so hard to fight every urge to control the way she was choosing to eat her food, after all, I kept telling myself, all I really cared about was whether or not the peas made it into her belly.
I walked away and washed the dishes. To my (very pleasant!) surprise, once I was done, I looked over and she had eaten all of her peas. I heard God say "It doesn't matter how they come to me, all that matter is that they do." This gave me hope that no matter what the journey looks like, the end result is what matters.


Hey, maybe the lesson is this:

They need to see my journey, I need to respect their journey, and God will take care of the end result.

Just a thought.

I like to catch myself saying things to my kids and then realize that God sometimes says the very same thing to me.

The other day, at lunch, my daughter spilled her milk on the table. "Uh-oh!" she said trying to find something to clean it up with. 

Before she could could get to it, I grabbed my napkin and said "Don't worry, I've got it." 

It hit me right then. 

That's how God our father is. I can't count the amount of times He has swooped into one of my accidents and cleaned it up as if to say "Don't worry, I've got it."

So thankful for a God who doesn't cry over spilled milk ;)

Yea and Amen!

Just some food for thought:

As parents, there is a lot of pressure (from ourselves mostly) to make sure that we follow-through with our discipline. When we say no, it means no. When we lay out the rules of the game then we are also going to make the heck sure the rules are followed; and if not the necessary action is taken. This is because kids need boundaries and they need to understand the repercussions of their choices. Consistency and follow through are essential to toddler living.

Yes. I get this.

But here's a challenge: What if we took the focus off that game for awhile. What if we tried playing a different game. The one that's called something like "every time we say "yes, later, I'll help you in a minute, we can do that after your nap, maybe another day" we actually follow-through and do it!

What would happen to our children if we focused our follow-through energies on the promises?

Chances are it would be easier for them to trust us. Chances are they would quit pushing the envelope so much. Chances are the outbursts would become less and they may even become more-- dare I say it-- reasonable! Chances are we would all have a lot more fun together.

Chances are they would learn that their parents are trustworthy and then therefore, so is God.

Whattya think? Up for it?

1 Corinthians 1:20 For as many as are the promises of God, in Him they are yes; therefore also through Him is our Amen to the glory of God through us. 

The Three Essentials

I told God one day, "I want my (our) daughter to grow and learn and be healthy." Much to my surprise He didn't go on and on about the importance of always eating organic food, or keeping her away from sweets (Gosh, I wish He had because that would be the BEST excuse when explaining myself to family and friends). He didn't say anything about parenting philosophies, approaches to learning, or taking multi-vitamins either. This is what He said:

Sunlight. Fill her with the Word. Relax. 

That's what it takes?

I wasn't sure if I had heard the whole sunlight business correctly... I mean, what about SPF 155 and sun hats and umbrellas? But then I got to thinking... God created the sun, He would never create something that would destroy His people... I decided to do some research.

Did you know that living creatures survive because of sunlight? Plants need it to grow and we need it for energy and growth as well. We not only consume sunlight from being outside on a sunny day, we also get vitmain D and stored solar energy from the plants and animals that we consume.
Hello cellular respiration! Finally, biology class is coming in handy!

The latest research is also showing that EARLY exposure to sunlight decreases the risks for autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis and cancers like prostate and wait for it... MELANOMA! It seems that the people who have a history of being in the sun are more likely to recover from cancers like melanoma. Crazy. Absolutely crazy.

The list goes on...

[Now I realize that our world is broken, and that the sun and our atmosphere are not necessarily in tip top shape, I am certainly not negating the importance of sun safety. My point is that it was created for good-- and we should take advantage of that-- not fear it.]

Next up-- filling her with the Word. I must admit, this is one that I struggle with. How do you fill a baby/toddler with the Bible!? I've come to take this a couple of ways... there is the Bible, there are the words that God speaks to me, and there are the words God speaks to her.

As for the Bible, when she was a baby, I would read to her while she nursed. I imagined the sweet words of God seeping into her little brain, exciting her spirit, and nurturing her in the best way possible.

But then she became a toddler.

We read a little toddler Bible to her occasionally-- and when I read my "verse of the day" I try to remember to read it out loud to her. It seems as though her busy toddler self doesn't really care much for the Bible though. hmph.
I still believe that whether she is sitting quietly in my lap as I read or roaming around looking for a left over snack somewhere on the floor, the words of the Bible are seeping into her little brain, exciting her spirit and nurturing her in the best way possible :)

Then there are the words that I hear from God, that her dad hears and that even the other people around her hear. We believe these are just as important to growing a little life. Early on we started recording her history and soon after she was born I started writing down the things that God was speaking to me about being a mom. These may not serve her just yet, but eventually I know that these "words of God" will build her up and encourage her wherever she is at.

Finally there are the words that God speaks to her. This has been my favorite way by far of filling my child with the Word! We simply ask her to be still for a minute and see what God is saying to her, or sometimes we ask her if she would like to pray and wait to see what comes out!
She will often tell us that Jesus is saying her name... one time she prayed that her friend would come over the next day. I decided to keep my mouth shut and not tell her that her friend was not coming over--and good thing because the next day his mom called and asked if we could watch him for a couple of hours! How amazing it was to share that answer to prayer with her. Hopefully this type of simple communication will foster an incredible relationship between her and her Father.

Last, but certainly not least, was God telling me to chill out. I, and I think a lot of moms, can get quite crazy about- well- everything! Crazy about nap time, whether or not our kids are eating too much or too little or the wrong things. Crazy about how much time is spent on the iPhone or the television, and what they are actually watching on these devices! Or how about GOOGLE??! I find myself constantly googling symptoms and issues-- one time I even heard God say "do you trust me or google?" GULP.

Whisper His name in the whirlwind.

I once heard that said. Seems to be the cure to my craziness-- my key to relaxation.

It centers me-- whispering His name.

I also remind myself that my kids are His kids-- and before I lay them down to sleep I give them right back to him (well, let's be honest here-- when I remember!). Like, audibly tell myself and God, "here you go-- they are yours!"

So sunlight, word, relax. Seems easy.

It's not.

The busy-ness of this life seems to get in the way of most of what God teaches me.

But when I remember what God has spoken, life seems so much sweeter.

In these moments I learn exactly what it meant when Jesus said "my yoke is easy", and I can rest assured and in true trust that my children will grow and learn and be healthy.

Ask and you will receive!

Childlike

I am thankful to have a husband who strives to make his relationship with his children mirror that of our Father and all of his children. When our daughter was a bit younger and she would fall asleep in his arms I would think "Yes! This is what true trust and rest look like. Sleeping so soundly in dad's arms, not a care, not a worry or thought about the future. Completely at rest."

God continues to show me how I should be through my children.

Nothing like a child to learn how to be childlike!

I believe this is what He has said to me:

"Be like a child.

Carried.

Moved by her parents.

Receiving love. Giving love by just being.

Asking for what she needs in her own language until she learns the language of her parents.

Not giving up.

Observing.

Finding wonder in everything.

Learning constantly.

Wanting to be no where else but in her parents arms."

What if this is how our relationship with God went? 

What would that look like?

Spare the Rod...

Early on I learned that I needed to forget. 

So much of who we are as parents comes from what we have seen and experienced in the world around us. We start developing ideas on parenting way before we are aware by watching our own parents, watching our friends parents, following TV sitcom/ reality parents, and just through our own life experiences. Many of these experiences can be stored in our back pocket, and many of them forgotten. The struggle comes when deciding what goes in which category. 

I have a wide variety of parenting/childhood education skills to draw from. Between my own parents, babysitting, nannying and also working in the early childhood education field I have pretty much experienced every single philosophy one can imagine. I started forming ideas on what kind of parent I would be very early on. 

But then I had a kid. And I realized that God may have other plans for her. 

So starts the forgetting. 

As I prayed, I realized that I needed to isolate every single situation we faced together and bring it to God and find out how He would deal with it. 

This is a lot of work. I so wish that sometimes I could just default to a good old spank, generate the appropriate tearful reaction and voila! win that battle. I also wish that sometimes I could pull her away from a situation, stick her in a corner, make her think about what she has done, piss her off because she can't play with her toys and some how teach her not to repeat her previous behavior.

Ahhhhh power struggles :)

But this way, although sometimes seems so natural (Ahem, learned, so therefore right!) really isn't the way that God wanted me dealing with His child. His way actually requires me to be much more present  in my child's day, in her every action. His way requires me not to simply react but to become an active participant in every situation she faces. 

The biggest nugget God has given me so far is this: "There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love." 

1 John 4:18 

Did you catch that? God is love. There is no fear in love, therefore God. And fear has to do with punishment. There is no punishment in God. 

Woah, woah woah! Are you saying that you believe that we shouldn't punish our children? What about the whole "spare the rod, spoil the child" thing?

Yes, actually, that is exactly what I am saying. The biggest things that I have learned thus far as a parent is that first, the rod is not a spank. The rod is not punishment. The rod is DISCIPLINE. Discipline brings wisdom, discipline brings self-control and self- esteem. 

Punishment brings fear, shame  and guilt. 

So what does the difference look like? Well, I believe God has showed me that the difference is in the consequence. Discipline teaches and relies on choices and their natural consequences, punishment is put on, unnatural, it is conjured up, it is usually a result of a power struggle. 

I don't believe God punishes. I believe God is holy and sovereign and when we make choices according to His nature-- when we are obedient-- He can be close to us, therefore we experience His goodness. When we choose to disobey, He can't be as close to us because of His holiness and our unholiness. This is not a punishment, this is a natural consequence to our disobedience-- distance from God and therefore left to our own devices.

Ok, so how do I apply this to my child? Well, pretty much in every situation that we face I give her choices and I lay out the consequences. Then it's up to her what happens. 

She loves to watch me cook. Unfortunately, not everything on the counter is exactly safe for her to be touching. She knows that I want her to be safe. She also knows that if she chooses to stand at the counter and watch me cook--with her eyes-- then I am more than happy to have her company. If she chooses to watch me cook --with her hands-- then she is asked to get down, make a safer choice and find something else to do. She makes the choice and deals with the consequence.

When children have choices, they feel in control. They become more reasonable. Tantrums are less, crying is less, and battling is less! When they understand their choices and consequences there are no surprises and when they are actually allowed to make their own choices, they are not only learning to deal with the consequences, they are also building their own self- confidence, different levels of self-control and security in the world around them.

Sounds like a child on her way to developing the fruits of the Spirit no?

 I'll take that over a child crippled by feelings of shame and guilt any day! 

So thankful that I am not on this journey alone.

 God is even more invested in His child than I am, why not let Him take the reins?

A History Lesson with God

Ever wonder what Freshman History might have been like if Jesus was your teacher?

I can't wait to one day see every day completely and totally from God's perspective. I bet I will belly laugh at the silly little things I let worry and stress me day by day.

Something that we like to do in our family is record our personal "history" so that in the dry times we can remember back to what God has done in our lives-- instant faith booster!
These personal histories not only serve as a faith builder, but we also use them to look back and see how God was moving through a certain situation or setting us up for something we were believing for when we didn't even know it.

A good example of this was when we found that we were going to have our first baby-- it was quite a surprise! A surprise as in, we weren't trying at all, and had actually planned on having a baby after we had been married for at least two or three years, but here we were coming up to our first anniversary and our little lady was on her way!

It would be a lie to say that we didn't errr... struggle, in the beginning with what was to come. I desperately needed to know WHY?
As I spent time with Jesus, Holy Spirit started to show me what was going on. When I looked back through my prayer journals and my recorded history I saw what was happening.

God totally wanted her and he wanted her now.

I was amazed to read prayers I had prayed about my children that I had forgotten about. And prayers about my health that later I realized were cured by having a baby!

Miracle worker from the start!

Eventually as the pregnancy went on, the prayers spoken over me were about this baby actually bringing me into my destiny. After 5 long years of praying for my purpose, an unexpected baby would bring me down the path God needed me on.

WOAH.

As I looked back, I realized that before this child was even born, she had a history with God.

We definitely needed to record it.

She is only two, yet she has pages of history already.

Gosh, I think of how different my life may have been if I had the opportunity to see how Jesus used me and moved in my life way before I was aware. Where would my faith be now?

If your child's history with God was recorded what would it say?

How much more of an appreciation would you have for that little soul?

And how much more would you be able to trust God with her?

What's Up with Free Will?

I never really thought too hard about the concept of free will. I could repeat back to you the standard reasons most Christians would say if asked "why did God choose to give us free will?" It would probably sound something like, "well, because He wanted us to choose to love Him, because that's true love." or the ever famous "God didn't create us to be robots." "God wants a relationship, and what kind of relationship is forced?"

These are the answers that I knew and could recite, but then I got pregnant.

Suddenly those answers were not good enough, because suddenly I was growing a child who I would have to raise and I really, really needed to assure myself that she would be a lover of God. Can I get an "amen"??

What the heck? How do you do that? How do you make sure that your child will want to be in relationship with Jesus? If someone has the answer PLEASE let me know.

This is what happened when I asked God. I sat down and I asked Him plainly "How do I make sure that this child you've given us will always love you?"

This is what I believe that He said.

 "Seek me. Love your daughter. Teach her what is best, then let her go." (gulp) <---- that was me, not God. " There's no way to assure that she will love Me- that's the consequence I faced when giving you free will."

Double gulp.

The concept of free will had never hit me so hard.

God made some BIG sacrifices in order to *maybe* have the relationship that He wanted to have with us. If I were God and could make sure that my children could know me and always have whats best whether they liked it or not, heck yes I would make sure of that! What's up G???!

Recently this has come up again. My husband and I have been talking a lot of about this sacrifice. A couple of months ago, well into my second pregnancy, hubster really struggled with the idea of why God would create us in the first place and then on top of that, why God would give us free will. We discussed back and forth about the idea of companionship, about the idea of God wanting friends and also created us to be people who would love to serve Him and worship Him.

The hub was really questioning why such a good God would bring people into the world when He knew that they would have free will, He knew that they may not choose Him, and He knew that because of the brokenness of the earth, bad things were bound to happen... even to good people, even to lovers of God.

I kept telling him that God knows what our lives will be like once the Kingdom and the earth fully collide. We have to trust that the goodness that we will experience will far outweigh the horror that we see on the earth. We have to trust that any person, no matter what they have gone through, will say "I would do it all over again to bask in the glory of God."

That answer didn't seem like enough. God still seemed so selfish. Then I thought for a moment.
I asked him, "We know how f'd up this world can get. We know that horrible things happen here, yet we are choosing to bring another life into this world. Explain that one to me, and then maybe you will catch a glimpse of the Father's heart."

And it all comes down to LOVE. A crazy love that I can't wait to experience in it's fullest.

Why did you choose to bring children into this world? Please share! I want to know more about the Father!!!

There's enough grace to go around

There's really no way around it: parenting is tough stuff.

If we didn't have enough going on already, between work, maintaining relationships with our friends and family, caring for a home which includes, quite possibly, a pet of some sort and of course, pursuing a romantic relationship, then life tacks on a baby.

A baby, is a baby. Impossible not to love and superior in our hierarchy system to many of these other responsibilities. The problem is, just because a baby appears doesn't mean the other things disappear. So we find ourselves having to live life as it were, but now, as a mom or dad.

Somehow by the grace of God we manage.
We juggle everything at once and many of us say that we wouldn't do a thing differently, and probably, we wouldn't. But can we all agree that it's not always easy? That walking through life with the constant reminder that another human being relies solely on us can be a daunting thought?

I often think about Mary (as in the mother of Jesus). I think about how she must have felt giving birth to, and raising the actual Son of God. I think about her pregnancy and her unassisted manger birth. I think about how she may have decided how to deal with toddler conflicts and sibling rivalry. I think about how her and Joseph may have talked to Jesus about sex and love, or even what they did when Jesus accidentally pooped his tunic because he was too busy playing to go to the bathroom. I think about this all in the context of Mary raising JESUS, God's actual child.
 I think "Holy smokes! You must have been a woman of so much grace. You also must have gone crazy at least 4 days out of the week!"

I hear a still and small voice whisper to me: "You are raising a child of God as well."

Ummm... was that supposed to make me feel better?

I continue thinking to myself, "well, the child of God that I am raising  walked out of the bathroom with a razor in her mouth the other day. She also decided she wanted to only pee outside on the ground like a dog from now on, and lately (at the bold age of 2) she has taken to calling her parents by their first names."
Just as I am feeling like a complete failure I remember the story of Mary and Joseph traveling on a long journey back home when they realize that they haven't seen Jesus in three whole days. They lost Jesus!

The revelation almost makes me giddy. Mary and Joseph actually LOST the Son of God and well, He came out perfect!

I hear the voice again "You too, are a woman of grace."